Understanding Soccer.

Understanding Soccer addresses the following and much more. Understanding Soccer explains the 17 Laws of Soccer using game videos, training videos and helpful comments.

What is soccer?

How can I understand soccer?

Why is the rest of the world crazy about soccer and is the United States getting there?

From George Vecsey,who wrote the Sports of the Times column for The New York Times from 1982 through the end of 2011. He also covered eight men's soccer World Cups for the NY Times.

"I don’t know any other sport so beloved by the people who play it, or the people who watch it.Everybody in the stadium understands that at any given moment something amazing can happen, out of nothing."

What is Soccer?

The above two sentence quote from George Vecsey covers the essence of soccer. Understanding Soccer will help those new to soccer appreciate what he meant.

Soccer is played on a rectangular field with goals at either end. Normally, there are goals with nets at each end, but pick-up soccer can be played on any relatively flat surface with any roughly round object as a ball.

Two teams of 11 players each try to drive a ball into the other's goal by kicking, heading, or using any part of the body except the arms and hands. The goalie is the only player who may touch or move the ball with the arms or hands, but only within the penalty area.

Each team consists of a goalie, who defends the goal area, and 10 field players. Traditionally, there were two fullbacks who defended in front of the goalie, three halfbacks who covered the mid-field and had both offensive and defense responsibilities, and five attackers. Today, coaches use many variations of the classic 5-3-2-1 (5-front line attackers, 3-mid-fielders. 2-fullbacks and 1-goalie) formation as game strategies dictate.

However, all you really need is two or more players and a ball.

How Can I Understand Soccer?

First familiarize yourself with the 17 Rules of Soccer by browsing the text and viewing the videos. Later, you can explore all the topics using the navigation bar on the left. As you become familiar with the Understanding Soccer site, repeated viewing will enhance your understanding. As you watch soccer games, either on TV or in person, your understanding will grow very quickly.

​Why is the Rest of the World Crazy About soccer?

The United States equivalent of soccer fever around the world is baseball, basketball, football and hockey in the US and Canada. As with soccer, children learn early and the passion usually continues throughout their lives.

Almost anywhere in the world, children start kicking something round when they begin to walk, if not sooner. All that is needed for a game is two players, but usually there are many on a side. Soccer is played in some of the poorest areas of the world as well as the wealthiest of communities.The Cup, a movie about young monks in a Tibetan monastery in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains sneaking out to a local tavern to watch world cup games, may shed some light on "world wide soccer madness".

Eventually, soccer fans are caught up in the frenzy of league play regardless of the country. Understanding Soccer will utilize the English Premier League and national and international competitions to show the excitement that exists throughout most of the year.

There are many things that make world soccer special, but intense fan interest and relegation sets it apart from any other professional sport. Most countries have several leagues, each decreasing in importance. The top and bottom three teams in most leagues are either relegated up or down respectively at the end of their seasons. The competition to either be relegated up or to be relegated down to a lower league maintains fan interest and excitement until the last day of the season.

This is unknown in the professional US sports where a significant number of teams are out of playoff contention soon after mid-season.

As more Americans continue to grow up playing soccer, some of the world's soccer madness is spreading at home.

The 2011-2012 English Premier Leaguehad one of the most exciting finishes in its entire history. On the final weekend of the season, all but two of its twenty teams had meaningful games that would determine if some were relegated down and others would finish in the top four to qualify for the 2012-2103 Champions League competition.

Most, if not all American professional leagues, have only a small percentage of its teams with important games at the end of their seasons. Many of the teams are out of the running by mid-season.

Some perspective: Every year American sports fans are caught up with the excitement the Super Bowl, the World Series as well as college basketball's March Madness, but the rest of the world goes crazy over soccer's World Cup, which is played every four years.

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